The Philips Innovision Centre in Bangalore, which serves as a software development and research base, has a fresh agenda for the new year. It will soon have a three-member interactive design desk as well. The team will focus on improving the design transfer process to start with and evolve, over the year, to include other jobs like electronic product designs. The new design desk will be part of Philips Design "" the 24 hour design studio that works on perfecting the design efficiency of Philips products globally. The team worldwide is 450-people strong, with Asia, under Hong Kong, accounting for 115 professionals. The company's design studio in India was established in 1970 in Pune and has a comparatively smaller staff of 15.Though, till recently the design studio focused on exhibitions and consumer durables, other design applications are also expected to trickle in with the induction of the small team in Bangalore. The Pune designers, apart from working on design elements for Philips products from consumer electronics to lighting, also focus on solutions for exhibitions, events and in-shop displays for the company. Murray Camens, vice president and member of the global management team of the Philips Design group, who was in India some time back, says that the Indian team's ideas are behind stalls that dot exhibitions in China, Singapore, Indonesia and Europe, besides India. "With malls on the rise in Asia, the concept of shop-in shop is booming. It is imperative for us to stand out among the crowd. Besides our products, it will be Philips' corners that will draw the crowd," he adds.Camen says Asia and particularly India could look forward to demands for such facades and city beautification solutions. While environment designing is the India design centre's USP, it also does cutting edge work on the consumer durable front "" right from radios and transistors for rural India to the mixers and grinders for the Indian housewife. These designs conceived specifically for India, ultimately end up in Philips' assembly lines in other developing countries too, Camens explains.
